


Play it in Reverse

by Jessdraw



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Avengers, Protective Tony Stark, Reverse Field Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-11-27 11:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18194279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessdraw/pseuds/Jessdraw
Summary: “You’re being bullied?”“No! No, Mr. Stark, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”***In which Tony learns that Peter is getting bullied at school and the Avengers decide to go on a field trip to sort everything out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love reading field trip fics. "Another!" and all that. I also enjoy when people completely flip prompts around. I wanted the Avengers to be the ones who went on the field trip, for once. This is that fic.

It had been a particularly long day at school that day.

Peter had been out late on a patrol and hadn’t studied like he should have for the Spanish quiz last week. They got the grades back today and Flash took note of Peter’s less-than-stellar results. And then proceeded to remind Peter of the failure for the rest of the afternoon. 

It didn’t help that his English teacher Mrs. Hardin had wanted to talk to him after class about his essay on meeting your heroes. Apparently, it wasn’t very believable that a high schooler has that much actual experience with Tony Stark and she wanted him to redo it.

The cherry on top was when Ned had to cancel legos that night to visit with a cousin who was in town on a surprise visit.

Peter felt his slumped shoulders were justified as he walked into Tony’s lab to drop off a busted web shooter.

What he was not expecting was to find Tony at the desk working on one of his Iron Man gauntlets.

“Hey, Underoos, what did you break for me this time?”

Peter held back a wince.

“Oh, hey Mr. Stark. I thought you had a bunch of meetings today?”

“Kid, have you met me?”

Fair point. 

“I just didn’t expect to see you here today.”

Tony paused with the adjustment he was making and finally looked up at Peter.

“You doing alright, kid? It almost sounds like you didn’t want to see me.”

“That’s not what I meant, I just…it’s nothing. Just a long day. How’s the gauntlet upgrade going?”

“It’s going just fine and your attempts at a diversion could use some work. What happened? Was it something on a patrol? You aren’t hurt, are you? I told you after last time to tell me-“

“No, no it’s nothing like that. All of my bones are intact. I’m not even bruised right now. It was just a long day at school.”

Tony gave him a look at the bruised comment, but seemingly lets it go. 

“Well something’s clearly happened. Usually you’d be talking my ear off right now about the goat Spider-Man rescued from a roof.”

“It happened one time!”

“And that’s one too many! This is New York. How did a goat even there?”

“This is New York.”

“Hmm. Touché. Still. Care to share with the class?”

Peter winced. “No, it actually is my class…or at least this one guy at school. He doesn’t like me very much and he was just especially active in his dislike today.”

Tony’s expression darkened a little.

“Someone’s hurting you?”

“No! No. He’s just doesn’t like that I always get better grades than him and he gets mad about it and then my English professor is making me rewrite an essay I worked really hard on because she thinks I was lying and I don’t even get to hang out with Ned, today, because his cousin came and-“

“Whoa, slow down a bit there. So there’s a kid harassing you at school. Why haven’t the teachers done anything about this? Have you gone to the principal?”

“What? No, Mr. Stark, then he would get even worse. He would just blame me for everything and-“

“Wait, what did you say about your English teacher? She called you a liar? About what?”

“That’s not what I-“

“Forget you talking to the principal. I think I might have to talk to this principal.”

“Mr. Stark-“

“Jarvis, let Pepper know I need to cancel-“

“Wait! Please don’t cancel anything. I don’t want Ms. Potts to be mad at me.”

“Well I have to do someth-“

“No no no you don’t have to do anything. I’ve got everything under control. I can take care of this on my own and I’ll just rewrite the paper. It’s fine. Anyway, here’s the web shooter that needs repairing.”

Tony stared intently at him for a moment before picking up the crushed web shooter. 

“How did you even manage to do this? This stuff is supposed to be stronger than steel!”

“It might have been run over by a boat.”

“What?”

“A guy with super strength threw a boat at me and it landed on the web shooter.”

“With you wearing it?! When did this happen? I thought we agreed you’d tell me about any significant injuries.”

Peter started slowly creeping towards the exit.

“Well, it stopped hurting after a few hours and then the bruising went away-“

“A few hours?!”

“It was nice running into you, Mr. Stark! I have to go start working on that essay, now. Bye, Mr. Stark!”

Peter proceeded to dash out of the door.

Tony stared after him for a moment before glancing toward the camera.

“Jarvis, call up all the Avengers in New York. We’ve got a problem.”

***

The New York reinforcements consisted of Cap, Natasha, Clint, and Bucky. A five-person team. Plus Pepper. Tony could work with this.

“So what seems to be the problem, Stark? There weren’t any Avenger alerts.”

“It’s not that. It’s worse.”

Bucky straightened.

“Hydra?”

“No, but I think I wish it were. It’s Peter.”

Clint’s eyes widened. “What, is he hurt?”

“Not physically, as far as I can tell, but someone at school has been harassing him. I hacked into the school security and this guy likes to taunt him at any given opportunity. And apparently his teachers like to ignore it. Jarvis found out his parents are rather generous with their donations and his mom is a long-time PTA member.”

Steve joins in with a very astute observation: “That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“No, Cap. It does not seem fair. And apparently his English teacher is making him rewrite an essay because she doesn’t believe he was telling the truth in it. It seems he talked about some of his internship work with me in the essay.”

Natasha cut straight to the point. “So what’s the plan?”

“Now you’re speaking my language. I’ve already called Pepper. She’s sorting out all the finer details. How would you guys feel about taking a field trip to Midtown High tomorrow?”

Smirks rose around the table and Natasha allowed a glint in her eyes. “It would be my pleasure.”

***

It was halfway through Peter’s English class with the skeptical teacher when the intercom came on and Principal Morita’s voice rang out:

“There has been a last minute assembly scheduled to start at the end of this class period. All students are to make their way to the auditorium with the classes they are currently in to here from some surprise guests who have decided to speak with you all today. We hope you enjoy this experience and that you will all be on your best behavior for these people who have volunteered their time today. I shall see you all soon.”

Muttering broke out among the students as Mrs. Hardin tried to reel everyone back into the lesson.

Peter shot a confused glance at Ned and tilted his head in a way that said “That was weird. Do you know what that was about?”

Ned responded with a slight twitch of his shoulders and a quirk of his mouth to say that “No, I have no idea, but anything sounds better than listening to Mrs. Hardin try and explain more about the societal implications portrayed by the green glass door in this poorly-written dystopian book.”

Peter responded with a slight nod of agreement and they began a silent game of chopsticks that lasted until bell finally let rang and Mrs. Hardin instructed everyone to start heading to the auditorium.

Peter and Ned had only made it a few steps outside of the classroom before-

“HEY, PENIS!”

Twin groans escaped the two boys as they turned to see Flash making his way towards them from down the hall. Mrs. Hardin rolled her eyes and continued on with the other students.

“I was really looking forward to seeing you get another bad quiz grade back in our Spanish class, but I guess you can’t really afford that, can you? Don’t want to ruin your GPA with any more fifties.”

“Hello, Flash. I did actually get the chance to study for that last one, so I’d like to think I’ll do alright on it. I’m sure we both did great.”

“Nice try, Peter. You know I’m better at Spanish than you are, now. I’m not about to let you forget it.”

“Oh, I know,” Peter muttered.

“What was that, Parker? Were you sassing me?” Flash takes a few threatening steps closer.

Peter’s eyes widened as he took a step back, “no, that’s not what I was saying at all.”

Flash leaned over him and went to push his chest when there was suddenly a strange clatter and a ceiling tile fell onto Flash’s head.

“Incoming!” A familiar voice calls out, making Peter grab Ned’s arm and pulling them both out of the way of a one Clint Barton in full Hawkeye regalia.

“Mr. Barton?! What on earth are you doing here? And why were you in my school’s ceiling??”

“Hey, kid. I’m here for an assembly. I must have gotten lost on the way to the auditorium.”

“Wait, you’re the special guest?”

“I’m one of them.”

Flash, having removed the ceiling dust from his eyes, looked shocked to see an Avenger standing ten feet from his school locker.

“Mr. Hawkeye, sir! Hello! I can’t believe we have an Avenger visiting our school. Here, I can show you the way to the auditorium. It’s just down this hallway and-“

“Thanks, kid, but I already have my tour guide here.”

As he says this, he puts an arm around Peter and starts dragging him down the aforementioned hallway, a confused Ned on his heels and Flash glaring at Peter the whole way.

Peter was starting to guess that going to this assembly might be a very bad idea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Peter walk around Midtown for a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support! I'm glad the idea was well received. I admittedly thought this work would originally be slight crack, but that's not the route it's taken. I can't complain. As much as I like the occasional amusing crack fic, I tend to prefer a combination of uniqueness and trope-y goodness. Hope you guys like it!

They had only made it halfway down that particular hallway before Clint spoke up.

“Alright, kid, I know we’re here for an assembly, but I grew up in the circus. I want a tour.”

“Mr. Barton, we don’t exactly give tours here. It’s a high school.”

“Exactly! When am I gonna get another chance to explore a high school without looking like a pervert?”

“Give the kid some space, Barton, or you might start looking like one now.”

Peter turns around to see Bucky rocking the cliché hat and sunglasses celebrity disguise. 

“Oh come on, Barnes, you didn’t exactly grow up in this time. Aren’t you a little curious about how high schools have changed since the creation of sliced bread? Let’s explore a bit.”

Ned seems to finally catch on to just who is now standing next to him and begins to gape openly.

“Shut your mouth, kid, I’m trying not to attract too much attention.”

Bucky doesn’t seem to pay much mind to the fact that an avenger walking the local nerd down the hallway meant they were the focus of all the surrounding students, regardless.

Ned immediately closes his mouth and stutters a “yes, Sir, Mister Soldier- Barnes, Sir” and takes a few steps closer to Peter and Clint.

Bucky then turns back to Clint, “and no, so long as everyone is drinking from the same water fountains, I don’t much care how high schools have changed.”

Clint pouts at him for a moment before looking to Peter. “Where is the auditorium from here, exactly?”

“First left up ahead and then it’ll be the big set of doors on the right.”

“Great. I wanna see the basement.”

Clint then proceeds to drag Peter down the staircase to their right, leaving Bucky and Ned staring after them. Peter’s just able to make out Bucky’s sigh as he turns to Ned and asks him to save Peter a seat before following them down the staircase.

“You guys are going to get me in trouble. I’m supposed to be sitting with my class in the auditorium right now.”

Clint merely shrugged. “Just tell them you were helping us find the bathroom or something. Now where’s the lab? Tony tells me this is where you used to make your-“

Peter spazzed a bit and waved his arms rather faster than was necessary. “Shhhhh Mr. Barton you can’t talk about that right now! Someone might hear you.”

Bucky gave Clint a pointed look, but stuck to monitoring the handful of curious students still trickling towards the assembly.

“Alright, I hear you. But come on! Show us something interesting!”

“Ugh alright Mr. Barton, but seriously I can’t get into any more trouble-“

Bucky looked at Peter sharply. “What trouble have you already gotten into?”

Peter glanced around as the last couple of students walked out of earshot. “It’s nothing I can’t handle and you don’t have to worry about it.”

Bucky watched him silently.

“Really, you guys don’t have to do anything about it.”

Bucky crossed his arms.

“A few people here just don’t like me very much. Normal high school stuff. Definitely not avenger business.”

Clint stepped back from Peter to stand next to Bucky and joined him in crossing his arms.

Peter rubbed his arms.

Clint and Bucky each raised one eyebrow.

Peter shuffled his feet.

“Look guys! This is the lab I used to make my web-“

Bucky interrupted. 

“Peter.”

Peter hesitated another second before, “ugh okay there’s just this guy who likes to use nicknames for me that aren’t always the greatest but it’s fine because I still have Ned here and MJ has been pretty cool lately and there’s no reason for you guys to worry about it and I’ve got most of the Decathlon team that I like talking to and-“

“Peter. What nicknames is this guy calling you?”

Peter breathed for a moment and looked down. “I don’t really want to talk about it, Mr. Barnes.”

“Peter.”

Peter cringed and mumbled “pnns.”

“Right. A little louder there, buddy.”

Peter shrank a little and spoke a little louder. “Penis.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment and Peter glanced up to see their reactions.

Clint looked about ready to put an arrow through someone’s eye, while Bucky’s face had gone scarily blank. Bucky then spoke emotionlessly, “Clint, I think the full tour is going to have to be put on hold. I’m suddenly very eager to get to the assembly.”

Clint nodded. “Seems like it. Let’s go, baby Spider. Lead the way.”

***

The walk back towards the assembly hall was made in silence. Peter kept glancing between the two avengers nervously. The halls were cleared and everyone seemed be waiting inside the auditorium for everything to begin. Peter led them further down to the door backstage and stopped outside it for a moment.

“You aren’t going to do anything about this, are you? It’s just a bit of name-calling and stuff. It’s fine.”

“Agree to disagree, kid,” Clint said.

“But-“

Bucky interrupted him again. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. “Go find your seat, kid. I told your friend to save you one.”

“But I-“

Clint and Bucky waved at him as they disappeared behind the door, leaving Peter standing in an empty hallway.

Peter just hoped they wouldn’t kill anyone unsupervised as he turned back towards the audience entrance. He pushed open the door to walk in and immediately sighed. He should have known.

Mrs. Hardin stood at the top of the aisle glaring at Peter as he slunk into the auditorium. She did not sound pleased as she said “you’re late, Peter. It should not have taken this long for you to walk here from my classroom. You’re lucky it hasn’t already started, or I wouldn’t be letting you stay.”

“But in the hallway I ran into-“

“I don’t care who you ran into. You’ve already been late enough this year and we do not want to put forth a bad image to our guests. We will be discussing this further after the assembly.”

Peter knew not to argue and just nodded, “yes, Mrs. Hardin.”

He then called Ned to find out where their seats were. He’d actually managed to get some pretty good spots near the front, next to MJ. Peter almost wondered if she hadn’t saved them herself.

Ned noted Peter’s expression. “Mrs. Hardin?”

“Yep.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah.”

“Lego night?”

“Lego night.”

MJ rolled her eyes at them.

At least Peter knew he could count on true friendship to get him through the assembly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for however long this is taking. I'm also writing a thesis, which is more work than all my classes combined times two, so that's taking up a good portion of my time and motivation. I'm essentially finally writing up this fic as a means of procrastinating that thesis. Still, I am enjoying writing this! I never want to try and force something, but recently when a plot for a fanfic decides it wants to be written, I think I'll be more inclined to actually write it. Hopefully, you guys will like how this continues. Have a great week, everyone! The next chapter is almost done, as well, and will likely follow this one shortly. I think it'll be just one more after chapter 3 that will be post-assembly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The assembly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter! I initially thought there would be one more after this, but there really wasn't all that much left to say once the assembly happened. Enjoy!

Peter and Ned has just finished debating their chosen star cruiser blueprints for Lego night when Principle Morita walked on stage.

As close to the stage as they were, Peter could tell he was nervous and excited about introducing the avengers. Peter just hoped they wouldn’t try to embarrass him any more than Mr. Barton had with Flash earlier. Peter was going to be hearing about that one during Decathlon meetings for the next month.

Before the principal started speaking, Peter felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Flash smirking at him from the seat behind Ned.

“Hope you didn’t get lost when you were leading Hawkeye around. You certainly seemed to take your time. I wonder how dumb he thought you were when it took you ten minutes to walk down a hallway.”

Peter sighed. There went his hopes for a quite assembly.

“We just took a detour, Flash. He wanted to see some of the school.”

“Yeah, whatever, Penis. I bet you just wanted him to yourself for a bit. Gotta get attention somehow.”

“That’s not what I-“

This time Michelle was the one who interrupted him.

“You know, studies have found that people who feel the need to drag others down operate from a lack of personal awareness and low self-esteem.”

The three boys all turned to look at MJ with varying degrees of thankfulness and frustration. Light tapping on the microphone had the group turning back towards Principal Morita on the stage who seemed ready to speak and the chatter in the room quickly died down. 

“Thank you all for joining me during this last-minute assembly. I know many of you may have had quizzes or assignments that will now be rescheduled, but I think our guests today will be able to more than make up for it. All of our guests are excellent in their fields and we here at Midtown are honored to welcome several members of the Avengers!”

Even while some of the students had seen Hawkeye walking through the hallway, the entire audience burst into excited applause.

“Quite down, students. We don’t want to have to cut time out of the talk they are here to give us, now would we?”

The hall was immediately silent with anticipation.

“I would also like to personally thank the avengers for sending representatives to speak at our school. Please come on stage and share with us what you came to speak about today.”

All eyes shifted from Principal Morita as Tony Stark stepped out from behind the curtain on stage left. Even with the silence, Peter could feel the humming in the air. They were a STEM school. Almost everyone in here had idolized the man at one point or another. Peter was no exception. Following him were Captain America, Hawkeye, and Bucky. Peter, even having regularly been around all of them, couldn’t help but feel a little excited as well to hear what the avengers were going to say to the school. 

Tony himself seemed to zero in on where Peter was sitting and gave him a quick wink.

Peter was suddenly a little less excited and a little more wary as he squinted at his mentor.

Tony ignored him and walked up to the podium.

“Hello, students of Midtown! Bet you didn’t expect to see us here today!”

Disbelieving heads nodded throughout the auditorium.

“We’re here to tell you guys a little about our lives and how we got here. We’ve all had our fair share of being the odd duck and we’re going to tell you guys a little about that today. First to speak is going to be our very own Legolas over here. Clint, if you would be so kind.”

Tony stepped back and allowed Clint to take the podium as he started to give some of his background of how he learned to shoot and some of the declassified aspects of his life in the circus. Peter had heard most of it before, but the last few sentences were new to him.

“A circus isn’t exactly the standard childhood. We were all freaks or geeks in our own right. Who knew that little orphan boy would grow into being one of Earth’s mightiest heroes? It’s crazy how life happens like that and even more crazy just how much support one can find in the unlikeliest of places.”

Peter had a feeling Mr. Barton wasn’t just talking about himself.

As Clint finished up, Bucky came forward to take his place and started talking about how strange it is to see how unfamiliar New York feels and yet how so many people are still the same as they used to be, for better or worse.

“I remember there was one week where I had to rescue this punk-” Bucky points a thumb over his shoulder at Steve- “three times from the same two guys that enjoyed seeing how many shades of color they could put on his face. The buildings might look different here now, but the city is still full of the same lousy bullies and brave idiots.” 

Bucky made a point to lock eyes with Peter for those last few words.

“I’m still not a fan of the bullies, but I can’t say I want to look out for the idiots any less than I used to.”

Steve takes that moment to step forward and lightly shove Bucky away from the podium. 

“Yes, yes, you’re still an overprotective mama bear, and don’t I know it.”

Steve turns to address the crowd.

“He’s not kidding. You guys should have seen him when he heard that Tony’s intern managed to blow up some of Spider-Man’s web fluid. He wouldn’t let the kid into the lab for a week and wouldn’t let Tony have any dessert by proxy of allowing the kid fiddle with dangerous chemicals unsupervised in the first place.”

Bucky’s grumble of “Tony needs a better labeling system for all the chemicals down there and you know it” was just picked up by the microphone and a few chuckles echoed around the room.

Peter took a moment to groan and shrink down a little in his chair, hoping no one noticed his blush.

If he had looked to his left, he might have noticed MJ sketching out a new page in her journal.

Steve just gave Bucky an amused look before he turned back to the audience.

“Most of you probably know this already, but I didn’t start out as Captain America. When Dr. Erskine was considering me for the program, he asked me if I wanted to kill Nazis. I said that I didn’t. I just didn’t like bullies. And I still don’t.

We didn’t just decide to visit this school randomly, today. A good friend of ours is a student here and we recently discovered that he has received some rather questionable treatment from some of the people here. We’re here today to put a stop to that.”

Muttering started to break out among the audience. It wasn’t every day that students got a lecture from Captain America. Peter knew how they felt. The PSAs really didn’t do any justice for the Captain America Look of Disappointment™. 

Peter also knew that he was going to kill Steve for this later. Or at least not share any of his orange chicken the next time they ordered Americanized Chinese food at the tower.

Ned nudged Peter and gave him a questioning look of “dude is he seriously talking about you and Flash right now? Because that is so cool!”

Peter responded with a reluctant nod/shake and mouthed “Tony” to respond that “yeah I think so but I didn’t tell him and I only mentioned anything to Tony.”

Ned muttered a low “duuuuuude.”

Peter groaned in return.

Principal Morita was starting to look a little worried.

Steve started talking again once the muttering had quieted a little.

“My distaste for bullies is significant. My distaste for adults who should know better is even more so. While I would love for everyone here to see the bullying PSA right now, (a few groans echo around the room) I’m going to pass it on to Tony. It’s his intern, after all.” 

Tony returns to the podium and looks around the audience. 

“Okay, Natasha, you can come out now.”

Michelle smirks and says “sounds like that’s your cue.”

The student on the other side of MJ chuckles as she stands.

“Oh I like you. When did you make me?”

“You stopped pretend-scrolling on your phone for a second when Flash called Peter penis.”

Peter and Ned were still wondering how they hadn’t noticed an avenger practically right next to them as Natasha pulled off a wig and took off the padded jacket she was wearing, stuffing them into the backpack she’d used as part of her student disguise.

The surrounding students had finally started to realize they had been sitting next to the Black Widow herself and were openly staring in shocked awe.

Peter was still perplexed. “How did you even pull that off. You haven’t been in high school since like-“

“Oh Peter, you should really think about finishing that sentence. I’m only as old as I need to be, after all.”

Peter gulped.

“Thank you for joining us in the audience today, Ms. Widow, Ma’am.”

“Mhm.” She looked amused as she began to make her way up to the stage to join her fellow avengers.

Several of the surrounding students then turned to stare at Peter, having so casually just exchanged a few sentences with the actual Black Widow. 

Peter just ducked his head until they turned back to the stage. Even Flash seemed reluctant to start something about what had just occurred.

Once Natasha reached the stage, she walked over and whispered something to Tony. Whatever she said, Tony was not happy about it.

She then turned to join the avengers who had already spoken, apparently having no intention of sharing anything herself.

Tony, however, looked ready to say quite a number of things.

Peter turned to Ned. “If I die today, tell my aunt I love her.”

Ned gave him a mournful nod. “I will preserve your games and finish replaying the Battlefront II campaign in your honor.”

Peter grasped onto one of Ned’s shoulders in thanks as they stared solemnly at each other.

MJ rolled her eyes. “Losers.”

Peter and Ned both shot her matching grins before turning back to the stage as Tony started to speak.

“I have to say there are a few people in this audience that are very disappointing. Our resident spider assassin has just confirmed some of the things my intern mentioned to me yesterday afternoon. It seems that not only is my intern being harassed by some of his fellow students, but also by one of his own teachers. I hope you all understand that this behavior is unacceptable.”

Tony shoots a glance at Principal Morita, who looks halfway between upset and fainting.

“I was a fourteen-year-old when I started at MIT. I’ve definitely had my fair share of people thinking I wasn’t as smart as I am and who tried to prove it. It didn’t work out very well for any of them. And it won’t work out for any of you that continue to harass one of us.”

Now the muttering started en masse. While most of the students had been surprised to hear Tony Stark had an intern, they have definitely not expected him to go so far as to claim said intern as one of the avengers. 

Michelle was gazing contemplatively at Peter. “You never did say what branch of Stark Industries you were interning for.”

Peter cringed a bit. “No one seemed to believe me, anyway. Does it matter?”

MJ hummed thoughtfully.

Tony spoke again. 

“This kid has been working on avengers tech for months now. He personally did the designs for Spider-Man’s latest web shooters and I know for a fact that he improved some of Widow’s bites when I was out of town for an SI conference last month. He’s one of ours.”

MJ whispered again, “so it is you.”

“Huh, what? No, I’m just-“

“You’re blushing.”

“I-“

“That’s sweet.”

Peter stayed silent and blushed some more.

“He’s also alarmingly humble and none of us deserve him, which is why we had to personally come here to sort this out. Knowing him, he’d just continue tolerating his own mistreatment indefinitely. Hell, this has been going on for years and yesterday was the first I’d ever heard about it.”

“You are going to be on this stage by the end of the assembly, kid. We aren’t about to let anyone speculate about who they need to start treating right and you can bet we’re calling out that teacher of yours.”

Tony’s eyes were on Peter as the audience started trying to make out just who Tony Stark was looking at.

Peter glared at Tony and crossed his arms.

Tony smirked.

“What was her name, again? That English teacher? Hartwin? Halding?”

A voice from a section to the left of Peter called out “Mrs. Hardin?”

Tony pointed towards the voice. “That’s the one! Apparently my kid wrote about working with me in some essay and she was going to make him rewrite the paper for making up his material.”

“All the faculty members are in here, right?” Tony asked with a glance at the Principal, who nodded. 

“Great. Where’s she?” Tony surveyed the room as Natasha stepped forward and gestured to a seat near the top of the aisle she had been guarding earlier. Mrs. Hardin was slowly standing up, already knowing she was the one Tony had been referring to earlier.

“There you are. Still think he’s lying?”

She shook her head silently.

“Still going to make him rewrite that paper?”

Another shake of the head.

“And you’ll give him the grade he should have received in the first place?”

A nod.

“Wonderful! Glad that’s settled. See that you actually fact check the next time you decide to accuse a kid of lying, why don’t you.”

Tony turned away from her with obviously fake cheer as she sat back down.

“Now then. Back to the inter-student stuff. I did a bit of my own research once my intern mentioned this stuff yesterday. It seems a few teachers didn’t actually report the bullying that was occurring. I do hope that is not going to continue any longer, regardless of how much money someone’s parents may have or just what their PTA connections are. Right, Principal Morita?”

Tony glanced behind himself again and received an enthusiastic nod from Morita.

“Great. Glad that’s done with. Now, most of you guys here are actually innocent and basically just got forced to sit through a bullying lecture. To make it up to you all, we’re going to answer a few questions.”

The room immediately filled with shouting voices, over which Tony could be heard saying “raised hands, please! I expect better than paparazzi at a STEM school.”

That got everyone to quiet down as nearly every hand shot into the air.

Tony pointed at a hand over to the right. “You in the blue with the hair.”

“Who’s your intern?”

“I’ll answer that last, so he can actually escape with us once school lets out. We don’t need you lot mobbing him with questions as soon as he’s revealed. Tall girl in the back.”

“How did you even find your intern in the first place? Is there somewhere we can apply?”

“He worked on something that impressed me and I then I met him. He was hired almost immediately after that and no, he’s a special case. But if you’re interested in SI at large, there’s some in-depth stuff on our website. I know our programming department especially is looking for a few new interns for this summer. Hoop earrings up front.”

“This is for Captain Rogers and Sargent Barnes. Was New York food better before or after you guys became superheroes?”

Bucky answered, scoffing. “It was the Depression. Nothing was better. Except the Dodgers.”

Steve nodded his agreement.

“Bowling shirt in the middle.”

“Is this intern your son? You said he was your kid earlier.”

“Not biologically, and that’s all I’m saying about that.”

Peter struggled to hide a private grin at that even as he blushed.

Natasha stepped forward and muttered something to Tony, who then looked towards where Peter was sitting. “Girl with the sketchbook.”

“I want to meet Ms. Potts.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “A little early to be making demands, aren’t we?”

MJ shrugged. “Just making a statement. I know an intern who’s got some connections. Do you know when she’s available?”

Tony looked impressed at her boldness. And a little concerned. “It scares me how much you’re likely to impress her. Have your friend bring you by the tower sometime. I’m sure we can work something out.”

Michelle smirked and returned to her drawing.

Peter gave her a slight glare.

She added a bit of shading to her sketch.

Peter’s glare was ineffective. 

“Farmer Jack in the plaid over there.”

“What’s the weirdest villain you guys have faced as the avengers?”

Clint spoke up to answer that one. “Geez, definitely the Storyteller, for me. Never liked nursery rhymes or tongue twisters and it just feels like blasphemy when you’re fighting off Mother Goose characters. I never want to see another patch of pickled peppers again.”

Steve nods beside him. “I felt irrationally guilty when I finally managed to push Humpty Dumpty off that building.”

Bucky snorted. “I don’t know. Aren’t you guys forgetting about the time Loki made all those textbooks act like that Harry Potter Monster Book of Monsters? While hilarious, I doubt any of those students studied for the rest of the year. My copy of the Prisoner of Azkaban still growls at me.”

Tony chuckled at him and continued calling on people. “Okay, next. Steampunk jacket over there.”

“Where are all of the other avengers right now?”

Tony puts on a faux affronted look. “Are we not enough for you? My inadequacy issues are acting up. Honestly.”

Natasha rolls her eyes at him and answers. “Thor is back on Asgard trying to fix something Loki did. Something about singing flowers and a sentient sea shell. Don’t ask. Banner and Witch are practicing a new way to revert Hulk after a battle. The others are all on confidential missions that you’ll be able to learn more about once their missions are declassified.”

“Last one. You.”

For a second, Peter thinks Tony is pointing at him. Then, Flash’s voice rings out from behind him. 

“Do you actually know Pen- Peter? He can’t be you intern, can he? I mean he’s nobody special.”

All of the avengers start to look frustrated with the exception of Natasha, whose expression went blank.

Tony is the one who speaks, with a sharp glint in his eye. “Call him nobody again and I’ll make sure you’re blacklisted for every STEM university in the country. Did you not realize this entire assembly was set up to stop people like you from harassing people like him?”

Flash looked like he was about to swallow his tongue. “I wasn’t-“

“What? Weren’t being a bully? Try again. Even if Peter hadn’t said anything, Natasha heard you herself when she was sitting in the audience. You leave my kid alone. Capiche?”

Flash nodded rapidly.

“Peter? You might as well get up here now. I’m not sure you’ll have a good chance to escape with us otherwise.”

Peter made eye contact with Tony and reluctantly nodded and called out “can Ned come? It’s supposed to be Lego night.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Sure, kid, bring your friend and your Legos. We could always use a few more booby traps around the tower.”

“Hey! Our Legos are an art style and deserve the proper respect,” Peter called back as the two boys moved to make their way down the aisle and up to the stage.

When they got on the stage, Tony reached out to ruffle Peter’s hair. “Sure thing, kid. Just don’t leave them on the floor. I like to walk around barefoot in my own home.”

Peter huffed. “Of course not. That might break some of the Legos”

Tony turned a final time towards the audience who were watching the familiarity between Peter and Tony in fascination and spoke an adieu.

“It’s been great. Mostly. Don’t do anything I would do and get all of the good grades!” 

Tony then turned and put his arm around Peter as the avengers and Ned followed on their way out of the auditorium.

Peter gave Tony a side-eye. “Your kid, huh?”

Tony ruffled his hair again. “Hey, I did say not biologically.”

“True. But that’s not the way that’s important.”

“Careful, kid. You might just make me emotional and that’s not a pretty sight. I get blubbery. Tears and snot everywhere. You really don’t want to see that.”

Peter grinned and wrapped his own arm around Tony’s waist in a side-hug made only moderately awkward by the fact that they were moving.

“I love you, too, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s arm tightened around Peter for a moment as his lips turned up in his own fond smile.

“Blubbery, I say.”

***

Later that day, Peter and Ned were constructing a detailed replica of Dooku’s solar sailer. Steve, Natasha, and Clint were embroiled in a vicious Mario Cart battle. Tony was loitering behind the divider in the kitchen for another cup of coffee to brew. Bucky stood near him, ready to take some dark chocolate brownies out of the oven.

Peter paused in his construction for a moment and looked around the room. School might be weird for a while now, but he still had Ned and MJ. And he still had this. 

“Hey guys?”

Tony answered, but Peter knew everyone was listening. “What’s up, Baby Spider?”

Peter looked down with a smile that had no business being as bashful as it was.

“Thanks.”

Tony responded. 

“Anytime, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really proofread the stuff that I write, so please feel free to let me know if any typos slipped through. I enjoyed writing this. I only recently started being willing to actually write my own fics after being a long time fic-reader, and it's been really satisfying. Definitely recommend it. I'm also terrified for Endgame and am ready to read a plethora of fix-it fics after whatever tragedy occurs. I'm not ready to be emotionally destroyed. oh well. I love Game of Thrones, too. Maybe my grieving for one can help prepare me for deaths in the other. April is going to be devastating.

**Author's Note:**

> This plot bunny had been following me around for the last few days and I decided to make it happen. If people like it, then I will write some continuation. I hope you guys enjoyed it!


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